The world was waking up. A bold red bird flies up into the valley of cold, and lands on a pine. He dashes about surveying the scene before growing still, reaching up and calling out in a shrill sing song. It breaks the spell of winter. Already the ice had begun to drip, and snow grow slushy in places. Even the sky agreed that this land had suffered enough punishment and had risen without a cloud in the sky. The small little red bird calls out a top the pines, dashing from one to another, letting all know of this glorious return of life. He hears it too. Golden harks flick forward, but it’s the only sign of movement. The rest of a golden beast, which lies tucked away in a high cave, it still as death. He lays with his head stretched out and limbs tightly curled under him. A wolf hide cloak covers his back and is curled under his chest, but his head rests on bare rock. The gold sides breath, but only just, they are shallow and you can count each rib. Even his coat, a proud symbol of him, is dirty, and pale. It is a hollow form of the creature which dashed through the snow. He had been carved out, from the inside.

The signs are all around him. Flies lie dead about his head and shoulders where they struggled for life in the cold. They had come from him, inside him. It seemed ages ago since his lips had touched the forbidden fruit. The sickness had been swift though. It had started with a buzzing about his ears, like a mental madness signaling doom. The gold had panicked but kept his determination towards life. The next illness had been blisters which lines his lips and the insides of his fetlocks. Painful and cracked they made any attempt at fast movement or relaxed grazing impossible. Then came the bites. Constant and unstoppable flies, invisible to all others, had nipped at picked at his hide. They began to move in him, flutter about and eat away till all that was left was a shell. At last they found their ways out, every nook and cranny they would leak out of and torment him all the more. It was hell, and it left him looking like such. Collapsing here in his cave hide away the gold had only last night admitted defeat. Pulling what his beloved cloak about him he had settled down to let it all end. His thoughts had rested on his regrets, and most recently that black and white damsel queen. Yes, she resided on his thoughts a lot these past few weeks. Admitting his fate the gold had regretted his abandonment of her. Removed from that place and time his teeth gritted to thing of his unexplained panic and her pained face. She was an idiot for mentioning it and causing it, but as always, her naivete proved her innocence. Not that it mattered anymore. The gold resolved himself to permanent sleep. To pass in the night, never to face another damned fly.

Fate had other plans, and would not let this golden son pass so easily. As that little red bird sang out a joyful noise those golden harks had flicked up and forward. The golden son heard the bird. And nothing else. The harks twisted and then leaned forward again, nothing but a song bird. Earth eyes flash open with a keenness and hunger. All was still about him. Everything. Not a single fly buzzed from his breath, nor nuzzled against his flesh. His harks move about more and he twists his horned head to look around him. The flies which had scattered on the floor of his cave, frozen from the cold were gone, only a black smoke filtered out from a few cracks. Tongue went to licks his sore lips, as had become habit, but found, no pain to great him. The blisters were gone. It was all gone, cracked through by the first spring day.

He didn’t exactly jump up and celebrate. Earth eyes closed back and the gold slept again. The sickness may have finally left him, but he was still a sleep deprived, malnourished shell. It wasn’t until mid-morning that the gold came too once more. Those gold pierced eyes opened to the brightness of the day, and the sun which filtered into his cave and like the touch of a kind parent, caressed his golden neck with warmth. Sighing long and slow, finding relief in the vanishing of any unsettling hoards in his gut, the gold lifts his heavy head. Wait. What is this?! Tucked between his forelegs, swaddled in a wolf’s hide, and warm against the gold’s chest, lay a large orb.

After looking about his cave the gold shifts to reach this snuggled egg. His warm breath rolling in steam around his hardened shell. Even this malicious creator of chaos could not look at this object without a smile pulling up at his lips. It had been a hard won. The turkey and devil’s child he had stolen this egg from had not made it easy, especially in the throes of his condition. But that call had been ever persistent, so the golden had to answer. Now that it was his, the gold would never let any other claim his prize. The call, which had at first been but thing strings of connection was now complete and solid the steel crown which topped his head. He would keep this prize safe and well hidden from any who dared to even look upon it. The thought that there might be a living creature in that shell who would hatch out, never occurred to the gold. Perhaps it was his delirious state, but all he thought was he had a stone which he had triumphantly won. It shouldn’t be surprising really, that he was so possessive of his orb, look at the stash behind him. A purple feather, a honey badger hide armor, and more. All stolen, and well hidden here in his cave. So you should not consider this cuddling of the egg a parental call to duty, but a vicious greed.

So for what happened next the gold was completely unprepared. Shifting his weary body, which looked as if it had gone a hundred years without rising, the gold settled back to sleep peacefully once more. A small bleat whispered into his ears. Pinning them back the gold tried to ignore it, and closed his eyes once more. It continued, and called once again. Snorting the worn golden opened his earth eyes, the gold in them melting into a pleading glance for peace and rest. He would not have it though. Something moved in the wolf hide and the gold snarling looked down to see what disturbed his precious orb. Nothing was there. Suspicion began to creep on him. Another bleat rose in the air, but this time, his attention was on, and it came from the orb itself. Suspicion turned to confusion then to panic as the orb moved, and cracked. A rough call, broken from days without speaking, whispered to his precious. To the gold’s horror a small bleat answered.

With more creaks and groans than a haunted house the golden rose up from the cave floor. Legs stood wide, like a child’s. Even with his skinny frame the golden’s legs trembled at the weight, but he took no notice. From its wolf hide nest the egg began to wiggle more vigorously and the crack grew. A horrible realization entered the gold’s mind that he had made a terrible mistake. The delirium of his illness masking what clearly was a live egg. His horror was too complete for his curiosity to even begin to question what might be inside the egg. Just the notion that something, anything, was coming out of his precious was enough to make the golden feel sick all over again. Moments passed as the egg struggled, but the golden did not move to help it. He could only watch with a confused panic in his eyes as his precious, like a Trojan horse changed. Then the egg became still, and the bleating, for a moment stopped. The golden thinking the horror was over crept forward. Niffing at the cracked surface, his warm breath, steaming still in the cold of the cave, washed over the egg. With a burst a stronger, louder bleat rang out and the gold shot back, nearly unsettling his precarious balance. Emotions, worse than the hoards of flies which had invaded him, began to toss back and forth. Again with more force the egg began to wiggle and crack. Worn from his fight with the sickness, and panicked at his precious cracking and breaking from inside, the golden was not at all ready for this.


OOC :: Thread for Ophelia quest, ending of fly sickness, and Haldir's hatching!
PLEASE don't feel like you need to equal this length of post. XD
@[Ophelia]
"Speech"